


Drowning in Amber

by orphan_account



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: M/M, lots of imagery, one of my what-if scenarios
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-01
Updated: 2015-04-01
Packaged: 2018-03-20 16:33:53
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,328
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3657417
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Karasuno is broken once Hinata leaves.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Drowning in Amber

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry, this was just a short fic I wrote because of this annoying what-if scenario running through my head. Apparently there are lots of "what if Kageyama left Karasuno" fics but I wanted to try it the other way round because why not?
> 
> Also, this is my first fic so please leave reviews! :)

     Karasuno has lost its wings, once and for ever. The Spring High Competition has ended, and yet not one person at Karasuno is celebrating. For now they have to say goodbye to four of its members. Hinata happens to be one of them.

     When he first told the team, head down and eyes squeezed shut as if he couldn’t bear to see their faces, it was like a flash-grenade had exploded in the room; no one spoke, could hear, could see, could think, even.

     After a cold silence, Tanaka was the first to break it as he grabbed Hinata by the shoulders, and slowly the rest of the team unfroze and reacted to this revelation. They circled around him like sharks, clamouring where, why, when, how, clamouring to be heard as Hinata said, with a kind of pathetic desperation, that his father had lost his job, they were moving, and he wanted to stay in Karasuno, to continue playing volleyball, he wanted to.

     . . . . Pathetic. Kageyama doesn’t even realize what he says until all faces shoot around to stare at him, all except one. Hinata won’t meet his eyes. This refusal to acknowledge him, because Kageyama knows that they’re both thinking the same thing, snaps his self-restraint and he is rushing forward and his hands are fisted in Hinata’s collar, like so many other times when they’d fought but now it is different. Everything’s changed, and he wants it to stay the way it was before. The world is spinning away, and he can’t keep up.

     “You said,” he shouts, “that you were going to stay on the same stage with me, always. You promised?” He ignores the gasps of shock from his teammates, and Kageyama can’t stand to look at the regret and fury he feels, echoed on Hinata’s face. Then he’s pulled off and shaken roughly by the rest, and he glances away.

     The next day, when the whole team gathers to say goodbye, Kageyama looks around him and realizes that they’re already dissolving, the strings that have held them together were being snipped, one by one, and he knew who held the scissors. Kageyama realizes that he hates him for doing this, viscerally hates him.

     He refuses to say goodbye, and walks past him. As his back is turned, he doesn’t see Hinata’s face. But if he could have, he would have described it as watching the sun set. Beautiful. Tragic. It feels like the last time he’ll ever see it. But no, he thinks to himself, it won’t be goodbye, because one day I’ll be on the same court as him anyways. One day.

     

* * *

      Karasuno has lost its wings without their oddball duo. It becomes blatantly, almost embarrassingly obvious during the first month of Kageyama’s second year. Ennoshita tries to keep their team together, Nishinoya and Tanaka are trustworthy, and the first years have promising potential. But the setter is the team’s control tower, the one who decides the flow of the game, and Karasuno’s setter cannot function. And with no fully-functioning setter, nothing can work.

     It’s not like Kageyama has fallen behind. Everyday he practices, vowing to rival Hinata again when he comes back. When he comes back. When he comes back. It’s like a mantra to him, and why not? He and Hinata are destined for greatness, and they need each other to reach it.

     Nishinoya is taking a water break one day, and watching the others practice, and he says to Tanaka,

     “It’s like he’s playing for Hinata, not us.”

     Kageyama is unaware of the looks that the seniors give him, he shakes his head at the questions that Tsukishima and Yamaguchi ask him, he starts forgetting the first years’ names. He starts ignoring the whispers that cling to him, even when he thought he’d shaken them off.

     The King’s back on his court, they say.

     And so the King and his team leave the Inter-High Preliminaries at best eight in the Miyagi Prefecture, and soon the Spring High rolls around.

* * *

     Blue and white, as colours, have never suited Hinata. As the colours of Aoba Jousai, they slam Kageyama in the chest, over and over again, until he feels like he’s going to throw up or die or both. He can’t breathe. Across the court stands that short, bright-haired boy of sunshine, and his new team crowds around him like they crave his warmth. Kageyama should know how that feels. Aoba Jousai. Aoba Jousai. Aoba Jousai. Hinata is in Aoba Jousai.

     When they bow to each other, Hinata’s amber eyes stare coolly into his blue eyes, and they appraise each other like rival teams should, only Kageyama is wilting inside, and he has to fight hard to control his mind and tell himself that he is in Karasuno, Hinata is not, Hinata’s not his friend nor teammate nor anything else and please, just let them win this battle.

     When the game starts, Kageyama remembers a memory tinged with bittersweet gold, that everyone on this side of the net is your ally, and he so desperately wants to cross over to the other side. Then the ball is served, and the two teams clash.

     

* * *

     Kageyama never realizes, until this moment, how much Hinata had improved during the last year until he sees him in flight. Hinata’s flying form is beauty and grace and art, as it has always been, and every jump is a loss for Karasuno. He has never seen Hinata’s spikes score as many times as they have today.

     Halfway through their second set, the sight of a familiar lanky brown-haired college student catches his eye. Oikawa Tooru is shouting encouragement from the stands, and there is only so much he can take when both Hinata and Oikawa-san are his enemies.

     And Kageyama snaps. Like. That.

     Every spike, feint, block, they’re all ground to the dust; the spikes are stopped, the feints scooped up, and how could the blocks of Karasuno be any match for Seijou’s ace? Kageyama watches Hinata spike another point, watches him be surrounded by the blue-and-white of ghosts, and he thinks, I’m an idiot. Why did he ever think that it was only his toss that brought Hinata to life?

     Nishinoya tells him, “Concentrate on the game” and Ennoshita says “Don’t mind”, but even so his tosses are too fast, too wild, too crazy for his teammates to keep up with him, and with each shot that flies past their spikers’ hands, Kageyama panics a little more.

     Kageyama keeps expecting someone to be there to hit his tosses, and there isn't.

     He knows that Hinata is watching him, and seeing.

     The King’s back.

* * *

     Finally, at Seijou’s match point, Kageyama leaps and tries a setter-dump. It is an egotistical thing to do, and also the loneliest, but it’s the only way he has left to fight, and his teeth are gritted and the sweat is dripping into his eyes, and he can see the ball tipping over the net

     – And like a shooting star, he is there, his small hands outstretched, and Seijou’s ace slams the ball back down. Kageyama thinks, the person who he trusted the most, the one who he practiced with the most, the one who he spent countless hours with, how could he be so stupid to think that his moves would not be predicted? The score reaches 25.

     Kageyama lands, stumbles, and hears nothing. There is a veil misting everyone’s voices and faces, and all around him looms deep dark chasms that he will never be able to go across, at least not by himself. But if he wasn’t by himself – but he is. So he just stares at his scratched shoes and his mind can’t stop replaying the slap of the spike, the thud of the ball hitting the floor. The sound of failure.

     Vaguely, he thinks he registers his captain calling for him to line up, but he doesn’t move.

     “Kageyama.” He looks up. Hinata stands before him, his hair ablaze and his eyes afire, and on his face there is something resembling fury, and Kageyama just looks at him in dumb shock. Hinata grasps the net separating them, and it is an ironic unwanted memory which rises to Kageyama’s mind, of the last time that they’d been on different teams.

     “I promised you that we’d stand on the same stage together. But when this,” he tightens his grip on the net, “separates us, only the strongest can stay. You told me that yourself.” His eyes are shining, and Kageyama cannot believe that it is anger he sees in those eyes, anger and betrayal?

     “But I also promised you, “ he continues, voice rising, “that I’d be the one to defeat you. I thought you were a rival for me.“ Hinata swallows as if there’s something stuck in his throat, but then the whistle blows and time’s up and game’s over, and he leaves.

* * *

     On the day that Nishinoya, Tanaka, and the other third years leave, three people make a surprise visit — Daichi, Sugawara, and Asahi. Everyone is pleased, and some, ecstatic, to meet them, and no one says a word, or looks at him, when Kageyama excuses himself to slip away.

     He stands in the courtyard, looking up at the sky until the blue burns his eyes. It’s not like he’s not happy to see his seniors again, he is, but really, it was always Hinata who was the bond between him and the rest. Hinata was the one who kept them all together with fragile string, when what they needed were steel wires. He waits for someone to come find him, because they always do. It turns out to be Sugawara.

     “Kageyama, it’s good to see you again.”

    “You too, Suga-san.” There is a pause, which slowly drags on until he realizes that they’re standing in awkward silence. The wind picks up, hissing through tree leaves and whipping locks of his hair into his eyes.

     “I know what you’re going to say. They — Nishinoya-san and Tanaka-san already spoke to me about how I should . . . “ Brighten up. Let go. Forget it.

     Sugawara just looks at him, and says nothing. Kageyama turns around to leave.

     “Kageyama.” He turns back, and starts. Sugawara’s cloudy-grey eyes are a storm. The wind swirls around them, and he almost flinches at the cold spiking through him.

     “I gave up my position, during my third and last year, as a starting player. For you. Do you know why? Because Karasuno needed someone fresh and strong to win, to go to Nationals and stand on the Orange Court, like Daichi has always wanted to. You were the best person there was.”

     “I gave up my position and my pride,” he continues, “for you. Because Karasuno needed me to.” Kageyama doesn’t know what to say, he feels pity and shame but he doesn’t react and stands there, emotionless, but the wind’s stinging his eyes. Sugawara’s eyes have shadows around them.

     “And now I see you in front of me,” he says, “broken and fallen” Kageyama recoils at the venom “and still wearing that stupid crown of yours, and I see Karasuno in a mess and it makes me think, was it worth it? What did I sacrifice all that for?” He looks down. The wind has dropped and the courtyard echoes his voice and makes it sound ghostly, almost.

* * *

     Yamaguchi will make a good captain. At any rate, he’s much better than the alternatives. He’ll be capable, as was Ennoshita before him, but Kageyama still prefers Daichi and longs for the days when he was just a first-year. Not wanting to be late to the first club meeting of the year, Kageyama gets up early and arrives before anyone else, which he belatedly thinks is a bad idea. Half an hour of time to kill.

     Having nothing else to do, he practices his serves, which he secretly thinks could match Oikawa-san’s now, but one thought leads to another and he doesn’t want to think of Aoba Jousai ever again.

     Then he’s jumping, drawing his arm back, anticipating the smack of the ball against his palm, familiar, comforting, bittersweet, and there’s a noise behind him.

     It sounds like a sigh.

     Kageyama lands with an ungraceful jolt, and almost gives himself a crick in the neck from whipping his head around. He can’t think, his head is full of white noise and all he can register is the confused muddle of images and memories that his brain is throwing at him. He can only think, home.

     Hinata is silhouetted against the light from the doorway, and it does weird things to his hair, it turns gold, red, orange by turns. It looks like fireworks on the burst of night, and Kageyama stomach is full of them.

     “What – “ it comes out as a whisper. “Why are you here?” Hinata tilts his head, and smile shyly, gesturing towards his clothes. Black jersey, black pants. It brings out the colour and life in Hinata, and looks right on him. He’s wearing the black of Karasuno, black of the crows, their black.

     “I’m back,” he says, rather unnecessarily. He averts his eyes, looks back at him, and grins. Kageyama sucks in his breath.

     “Also, I – uh, I promised that we’d stand on the same court together, always, right?”

     Whether it’s at the top of Japan, or on top of the world.

     Kageyama stares at Hinata, trying to gauge what’s changed. His eyes are still full of the same ambition that Kageyama has been seeking to race for the past year, and his smile is the same as always. Hinata notices him staring, and Kageyama looks away quickly because he feels like he’s going to drown in amber.

     “You’re really coming back? To Karasuno?”

      “Yeah.” Kageyama chest is light from his relieved burden, and he feels like he’s flying.

     “I hope you’ve worked on your lousy-as-crap receives.”

* * *

     That year, they stand on the Orange Court of the Nationals. Karasuno has found their wings.

     And they’re flying.


End file.
